Ukraine: Macron réunit les chefs de partis face à la “menace existentielle” russe

Emmanuel Macron reçoit jeudi les chefs de partis pour faire le point sur la situation en Ukraine et les efforts supplémentaires de défense à fournir alors que la Russie devient une “menace existentielle”, en plein rapprochement avec Donald Trump.A gauche, Manuel Bompard (LFI), Fabien Roussel (PCF), Marine Tondelier (Ecologistes), Olivier Faure (PS) et Guillaume Lacroix (Parti radical de gauche) ont fait savoir qu’ils se rendraient à 11H00 à l’Elysée.Côté Rassemblement national, Louis Aliot sera présent, le président du parti, Jordan Bardella, devant se rendre au même moment à Washington. Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) et Marc Fesneau (MoDem) sont également attendus.Le chef de l’Etat renoue ainsi avec les rencontres au “format Saint-Denis” initiées en août 2023 dans cette ville limitrophe du nord de Paris pour renouveler la pratique du pouvoir dans la concertation avec les partis.Ces consultations, regardées avec méfiance par certaines formations qui y voyaient un moyen de contourner le Parlement, ont eu un succès très relatif, la dernière édition remontant à mars 2024, déjà sur l’Ukraine.S’ensuivra un débat sans vote, début mars au Parlement, sur les conséquences du contexte géopolitique en Europe pour la France.L’exécutif a commencé à préparer l’opinion à la nécessité d’un plus grand effort de défense alors que la paix en Ukraine esquissée par Donald Trump pourrait ressembler à une capitulation pour Kiev.Le nouveau président américain entend la négocier directement avec son homologue russe Vladimir Poutine, dont le pays avait pourtant attaqué l’Ukraine il y a bientôt trois ans, le 24 février 2022.- “Dictateur” –  L’administration Trump exclut le retour de l’Ukraine dans ses frontières d’avant 2014, c’est-à-dire avant l’annexion de la Crimée et la conquête de l’est du pays par les Russes, ainsi que son entrée dans l’Otan ou le déploiement de soldats américains pour garantir la paix. Le locataire de la Maison Blanche a en outre été d’une rare violence verbale avec son homologue ukrainien Volodymyr Zelensky qui réclame une place à la table des négociations, le traitant de “dictateur” au bilan “épouvantable” et suggérant qu’à ce rythme, il n’allait bientôt “pas lui rester de pays”.Emmanuel Macron, qui a réuni par deux fois des partenaires européens lundi et mercredi – près d’une trentaine au total -, pointe “une très forte convergence pour dire que la Russie constitue une menace existentielle pour les Européens”.”Nous souhaitons une paix en Ukraine qui soit durable et solide”, a-t-il encore répété mercredi.Les autorités américaines ont en outre indiqué mercredi soir que le chef de l’Etat français était attendu “en début de semaine prochaine” à Washington.De son côté, le Premier ministre François Bayrou a martelé devant sa majorité que “jamais depuis 1945, le risque d’une guerre en Europe n’avait été aussi élevé”.Dans un tel contexte, “le réveil européen passe par une augmentation des dépenses militaires” qui aura “des conséquences pour nos finances publiques”, a averti la porte-parole du gouvernement, Sophie Primas.Les Européens craignent que Vladimir Poutine ne soit encouragé à poursuivre son offensive en Ukraine, voire à l’étendre à des pays voisins, s’il n’est pas clairement “forcé” à la paix, y compris par le déploiement de forces étrangères le long de la ligne de démarcation.Emmanuel Macron a assuré mardi que “la France ne s’apprête pas à envoyer des troupes au sol, belligérantes dans un conflit, sur le front”.Mais il a aussi évoqué la possibilité “d’avoir, sous mandat des Nations unies, une opération de maintien de paix, qui elle se tiendrait le long de la ligne de front”.

Ukraine: Macron réunit les chefs de partis face à la “menace existentielle” russe

Emmanuel Macron reçoit jeudi les chefs de partis pour faire le point sur la situation en Ukraine et les efforts supplémentaires de défense à fournir alors que la Russie devient une “menace existentielle”, en plein rapprochement avec Donald Trump.A gauche, Manuel Bompard (LFI), Fabien Roussel (PCF), Marine Tondelier (Ecologistes), Olivier Faure (PS) et Guillaume Lacroix (Parti radical de gauche) ont fait savoir qu’ils se rendraient à 11H00 à l’Elysée.Côté Rassemblement national, Louis Aliot sera présent, le président du parti, Jordan Bardella, devant se rendre au même moment à Washington. Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) et Marc Fesneau (MoDem) sont également attendus.Le chef de l’Etat renoue ainsi avec les rencontres au “format Saint-Denis” initiées en août 2023 dans cette ville limitrophe du nord de Paris pour renouveler la pratique du pouvoir dans la concertation avec les partis.Ces consultations, regardées avec méfiance par certaines formations qui y voyaient un moyen de contourner le Parlement, ont eu un succès très relatif, la dernière édition remontant à mars 2024, déjà sur l’Ukraine.S’ensuivra un débat sans vote, début mars au Parlement, sur les conséquences du contexte géopolitique en Europe pour la France.L’exécutif a commencé à préparer l’opinion à la nécessité d’un plus grand effort de défense alors que la paix en Ukraine esquissée par Donald Trump pourrait ressembler à une capitulation pour Kiev.Le nouveau président américain entend la négocier directement avec son homologue russe Vladimir Poutine, dont le pays avait pourtant attaqué l’Ukraine il y a bientôt trois ans, le 24 février 2022.- “Dictateur” –  L’administration Trump exclut le retour de l’Ukraine dans ses frontières d’avant 2014, c’est-à-dire avant l’annexion de la Crimée et la conquête de l’est du pays par les Russes, ainsi que son entrée dans l’Otan ou le déploiement de soldats américains pour garantir la paix. Le locataire de la Maison Blanche a en outre été d’une rare violence verbale avec son homologue ukrainien Volodymyr Zelensky qui réclame une place à la table des négociations, le traitant de “dictateur” au bilan “épouvantable” et suggérant qu’à ce rythme, il n’allait bientôt “pas lui rester de pays”.Emmanuel Macron, qui a réuni par deux fois des partenaires européens lundi et mercredi – près d’une trentaine au total -, pointe “une très forte convergence pour dire que la Russie constitue une menace existentielle pour les Européens”.”Nous souhaitons une paix en Ukraine qui soit durable et solide”, a-t-il encore répété mercredi.Les autorités américaines ont en outre indiqué mercredi soir que le chef de l’Etat français était attendu “en début de semaine prochaine” à Washington.De son côté, le Premier ministre François Bayrou a martelé devant sa majorité que “jamais depuis 1945, le risque d’une guerre en Europe n’avait été aussi élevé”.Dans un tel contexte, “le réveil européen passe par une augmentation des dépenses militaires” qui aura “des conséquences pour nos finances publiques”, a averti la porte-parole du gouvernement, Sophie Primas.Les Européens craignent que Vladimir Poutine ne soit encouragé à poursuivre son offensive en Ukraine, voire à l’étendre à des pays voisins, s’il n’est pas clairement “forcé” à la paix, y compris par le déploiement de forces étrangères le long de la ligne de démarcation.Emmanuel Macron a assuré mardi que “la France ne s’apprête pas à envoyer des troupes au sol, belligérantes dans un conflit, sur le front”.Mais il a aussi évoqué la possibilité “d’avoir, sous mandat des Nations unies, une opération de maintien de paix, qui elle se tiendrait le long de la ligne de front”.

Sri Lanka train derailed after smashing into elephants

A Sri Lankan passenger train derailed Thursday after smashing into a family of elephants, with no passengers injured but six animals killed in the island’s worst such wildlife accident, police said.The express train was travelling near a wildlife reserve at Habarana, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) east of the capital Colombo, when it hit the herd crossing the line before dawn.”The train derailed, but there were no casualties among the passengers,” police said, adding that wildlife authorities were treating two elephants who survived the crash.Videos shot after the accident showed one elephant standing guard over an injured youngster lying beside the tracks, with the tips of their trunks curled together.Killing or harming elephants is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka, which has an estimated 7,000 wild elephants, with the animals considered a national treasure, partly due to their significance in Buddhist culture.Two baby elephants and their pregnant mother were killed in a similar accident by a train in the same area in September 2018.Since then, the authorities ordered train drivers to observe speed limits to minimise injury to elephants when going through areas where they cross the lines.The elephant deaths comes days after the authorities expressed concern over the growing impact of conflict between humans and elephants, as the ancient habitat of the animals is increasingly encroached upon.Farmers scratching a living from smallholder plots often fight back against elephants raiding their crops.Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Jayakody told AFP on Sunday that 150 people and 450 elephants were killed in clashes in 2023.That is an increase on the previous year, when 145 people and 433 elephants were killed, according to official data.Just those two years represent more than a tenth of the island’s elephants.But Jayakody said he was confident the government could find solutions. “We are planning to introduce multiple barriers — these may include electric fences, trenches, or other deterrents — to make it more difficult for wild elephants to stray into villages,” Jayakody said.A study last year detailed how Asian elephants loudly mourn and bury their dead calves, in a report that details animal behaviour reminiscent of human funeral rites.Elephants are known for their social and cooperative behaviour but calf burial had previously only been “briefly studied” in African elephants — remaining unexplored among their smaller Asian cousins, according to the study in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.Asian elephants are recognised as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. An estimated 26,000 of them live in the wild, mostly in India with some in Southeast Asia, surviving for an average of 60-70 years outside captivity.

Trump turns against Zelensky — and towards Russia

Donald Trump has not just turned against Volodymyr Zelensky by branding the Ukrainian president a “dictator” — he has also turned towards Russia’s narrative about its invasion, deepening uncertainty about Kyiv’s fate.Tensions had bubbled for days over Trump’s sudden decision to open talks with Moscow while excluding Ukraine, before they boiled over into an extraordinary war of words between the two leaders.But it was not just the sudden rift with Kyiv’s biggest backer that was most worrying for Ukraine and its European allies — it was the way that Trump has started openly echoing many of Moscow’s favorite talking points about the war.When Trump talked about how Ukraine started the war, quoted false figures about Zelensky’s popularity, urged him to call elections and ruled out NATO membership, analysts said it would all have sounded suspiciously familiar to many in Kyiv.”It looks like he’s preparing a big sell-out of Ukraine,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told AFP.Bergmann said Trump seemed to be “creating a predicate for the United States to simply wash its hands of supporting Ukraine, and to focus on having a relationship with Moscow.”Trump has an “affinity for Vladimir Putin” and an “affinity for the strongman style that Putin has,” he added.- ‘Comedian’ -When Russia invaded Ukraine almost exactly three years ago, Zelensky was hailed as a hero in the United States.But Trump was not at the party; in fact, he’d had tense relations ever since he was impeached for the first time in 2019 over delaying assistance to Ukraine as he pressed Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s family before the 2020 election. Support for Ukraine was also not part of Trump’s “America First” agenda. He’s long opposed the billions of dollars in aid that Biden sent to Ukraine, and pledged during the 2024 election campaign to end the Ukraine conflict before taking office, sparking further fears he would push Kyiv into an unfavorable deal.The Republican’s shock announcement of a call with Putin last week had initially been tempered with a call to Zelensky immediately afterwards. But it rankled with Zelensky, and the tensions grew after Russian and US officials met in Saudi Arabia on Monday.In the gilded halls of his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday, Trump said Kyiv started the war. Zelensky responded by saying that Trump was in a Russian “disinformation space.”Trump furiously doubled down, first saying on social media that Zelensky was a “comedian” and a “dictator without elections.”There was criticism from some Republicans, including Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence.But it quickly became clear that it wasn’t an outburst — it was now US policy, with the White House reposting his comments on social media and officials rushing to the airwaves to defend them. “Why hasn’t President Zelensky tried to end this war for the betterment of his country?” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told Fox News. – ‘Kill the patient’ -For Ukraine and Europe, the clash just intensified the whiplash from last week’s announcement.”A lot of the language, including his echoing of Kremlin talking points, indicates that maybe he’s just giving away the farm to Russia,” said Henry Hale, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University.But Hale said that while the Ukrainians should be worried, “I don’t think they should give up all hope…Trump’s negotiating style is to keep everybody off balance.”US Vice President JD Vance even seemed to offer Zelensky some advice, telling the Daily Mail that “badmouthing” Trump in public was an “atrocious” way to deal with Trump’s administration. European leaders are meanwhile still scrambling to respond.French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who have both offered to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine —  are both expected at the White House next week, but have also called Zelensky to offer support.Others, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, criticized Trump.But former British prime minister and Trump ally Boris Johnson played down Trump’s comments, saying they were “not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action.”Bergmann agreed that Trump’s comments could indeed be a “real pivot point” for Europeans — but he had a warning.”Now, sometimes shocks are effective at getting you going,” Bergmann said. “Sometimes they can kill the patient.”

Chinese workers from Myanmar scam centres heading home via Thailand

Hundreds of Chinese workers were heading home on Thursday after being returned from online scam centres in Myanmar, as authorities crack down on the illegal operations.Thousands of foreigners are expected to be freed and returned from scam compounds in Myanmar in coming weeks, starting with 600 Chinese nationals over the next three days.The compounds run by criminal gangs are staffed by foreigners, many who say they were trafficked and forced to work running internet scams swindling people around the world.Many of those involved are Chinese, and Beijing has stepped up pressure on Myanmar and Thailand to shut the centres down.Two double-decker coaches delivered a first group of workers across the border from Myanmar onto the tarmac of an airport in the western Thai town of Mae Sot on Thursday morning.Dozens of people, seemingly all men, boarded a special China Southern Airlines plane directly from the buses, mounting the steps after being checked by an official with a clipboard.The plane, which had flown in from the Chinese city of Nanjing, took off shortly after 11:30 am (0430 GMT) for the border city of Xishuangbanna.A Thai border task force official told AFP that 200 more Chinese nationals are expected to be returned on Thursday, crossing from Myanmar in groups of 50.China has arranged 16 flights over the next three days to ferry 600 of its nationals home from Mae Sot.It is not clear what fate awaits them, but Chinese security personnel are expected to accompany the returnees on the planes. The Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), a militia allied with the Myanmar junta, says it will deport 10,000 people linked to the compounds in areas it controls on the border with Thailand.”Two hundred Chinese nationals involved in online gambling, telecom fraud, and other crimes were handed over in accordance with legal procedures through Thailand this morning, in the spirit of humanitarianism and friendship between countries,” the Myanmar junta said in a statement.- Beatings -The release follows several visits by China’s Public Security Assistant Minister Liu Zhongyi to Bangkok and the border in recent weeks to arrange the repatriation.Scam centres have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, including in Cambodia and the Philippines, as the value of the industry has boomed to billions of dollars a year.Many workers say they were lured or tricked into the centres by promises of high-paying jobs before they were effectively held hostage, their passports taken from them while they were forced to commit online fraud.Many have said they suffered beatings and other abuse at the hands of their supervisors, and AFP has interviewed numerous workers freed from centres with severe bruising and burns. A local Myanmar militia last week handed over 260 scam centre workers from a dozen countries, including the Philippines, Ethiopia, Brazil and Nepal, to Thailand.

Iran executed 975 people in ‘horrifying’ 2024 escalation: rights groups

Iran executed at least 975 people last year in a “horrifying escalation” of its use of capital punishment, two human rights groups said on Thursday.Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and French group Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said the figure was the highest since IHR began recording executions in Iran in 2008.The figure “reveals a horrifying escalation in the use of the death penalty by the Islamic republic in 2024,” they said in a joint report, accusing Iran of using the death penalty as a “central tool of political oppression”.”These executions are part of the Islamic republic’s war against its own people to maintain its grip on power,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.”Five people were executed on average every single day in the last three months of the year as the threat of war between Iran and Israel escalated.”Last year’s figure represented a 17 percent increase on the 834 executions recorded in 2023, the report said.Of the 975 people executed, four people were hanged in public and 31 were women, also the highest figure for the past 17 years.- Executions over protests -Human rights groups, who say that Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, accuse the authorities of using the death penalty to sow fear among the public, particularly after nationwide protests broke out in 2022.Capital punishment remains a key pillar of the sharia-based judicial system established after the 1979 revolution ousted the Western-backed shah. Crimes punishable by death include murder, rape and drugs offences but also more vaguely worded charges like “corruption on earth” and “rebellion” which activists say are used against dissidents.In recent years, executions have been carried out by hanging, mostly in prison yards but occasionally in public, though other methods remain on the statute books.Two of last year’s executions were in connection with the nationwide protests that erupted in September 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested for an alleged breach of Iran’s mandatory dress code.Mohammad Ghobadlu, 23, was executed in January 2024 on charges of killing a police officer with a car during a protest in October 2022. Human rights groups have charged that his trial was deeply flawed, with judges ignoring evidence presented by the defence that he suffered from bipolar disorder. Gholamreza Rasaei, 34, was executed in secret in August on charges of killing a Revolutionary Guard during a 2022 protest. Activists said his confession had been obtained by torture.The rights groups said there was evidence Iran might have carried out more executions last year that they were unable to confirm for their report.They said there were reports of an additional 39 executions in 2024 that they had been unable to corroborate through second sources.Already this year, Iran has carried out at least 121 executions, according to IHR’s count.